Bezeugen BLOG

The idea for this BLOG post started a few months ago somewhat as a joke over lunch with some friends. We were discussing the concept of so called “friendship evangelism.” In many circles, friendship evangelism is where a Christian develops a relationship with a non-Christian with the hope one day of sharing the Gospel with his unsaved friend. The thing about this that is so ironic to me is that if Jesus is the most important thing in a persons life, then wouldn’t they talk about Him all the time instead of saving the information about this important relationship until months or years after a relationship develops?

Think of it this way. When we meet new friends they find out right away our home town, our favorite foods, our favorite sports teams, our kids interests and grades and our wife’s name. Wouldn’t it be odd to meet someone and not tell them for two years that you are married and have five kids? Well, in the same way, if Jesus is the most important relationship in your life, wouldn’t it make sense to tell them right away.

Jon Speed, in his book Evangelism in the New Testament, proposes a new definition for friendship evangelism:

“This is true friendship evangelism: a friendship that begins (not ends) with the proclamation of the gospel. It is based entirely on the gospel rather than on sporting or social events designed to sneak the gospel into the conversation at some later date.”

With this in mind, it bring me back to that lunch with friends a few months ago. We were talking about how sometimes we get friend requests of Facebook from people that we have never known. Since I mostly post on facebook about Jesus, witnessing and the Bible, I figure that anyone who I “friend” will hear the Gospel. But, to takes Jon’s approach, would be to actively try to “friend” people with the intent to share the Gospel up front. So tonight I decided to give it a try. I was actually looking for a friend. But, when I searched for his name and did not find a profile for him, I found that there were two other people on Facebook that had the same name as my friend. So I decided to send a friend request to introduce myself, share the Gospel and ask if they want to be friends in the context that they have heard the Gospel. I sent them the following message message within the friend request:

Hi – you don’t know me. I was looking for another friend with the same name as you. So I thought, hey, I’ll just send a friend invite anyway.

So that is an interesting profile picture that you have. And the message “caught in reality for an eternity” is sure interesting.

Speaking of eternity, where will you spend eternity?

The Bible says it is appointed once to die and then the judgment based on God’s Ten Commandments. Have you kept the Ten Commandments? Have you ever told a lie? What does that make you? (a liar) Have you ever stolen anything? What does that make you (not just a thief, but a lying thief) Have you ever looked with lust? Jesus said to look with lust is the same as adultery. What does that make you? (a lying, theiving adulterer at heart). If God judges you by this standard, will he find you innocent or guilty? Will he send you to heaven or hell?

Does that concern you?

The good news of the Gospel is that God does not want to send you to hell. 2000 years ago he sent his son Jesus to earth. Jesus being fully man and fully God, lived a perfect life and fulfilled God’s Law.He paid the price for your sin (and mine) when he willingly went to the cross and died. Three days later, he rose from the dead and is now in heaven. The Bible says he will come again in judgment. How do we get eternal life? Jesus says “repent or perish!” If you will repent (turn from sin) and put your trust in Jesus alone, then you will have eternal life.

So there it is. The gospel. Jesus is the most important thing in my life. I wanted to get that out in the front. I hope you’ll accept my friend request so we can discuss eternity.

Carl

I won’t know how this turn out until I hear back from them!

Last month we made AfterLifeCatalog t-shirts. Several people wanted white shirts instead of black. So we have worked with the printer to re-work the images for black on white instead of white on black. Below is a picture of me wearing my shirt at an outreach in the park recently.

These shirts get lots of comments. On the front it says “Where will you spend eternity?” So hear is the deal. We are going to be placing another order for t-shirts. If you want one, please specify black or white, size, quantity and your mailing address. Send the information to me via the contact page. Each shirt is $15.

Tonight the Dallas Mavericks played the San Antonio Spurs in game six of their playoff series. The American Airlines Center hosted a “watch party” where people could bring lawn chairs out to the Victory Plaza on the south end of the arena and watch the game on the huge HD screens that they have there. About 1000 fans came out. The picture below is from after we were done witnessing and people are sitting around watching the game.

Prior to the watch party starting, my youngest son and I handed out tracts and I did some open air preaching. Lately, I’ve been studying the excellencies of Christ based on some teaching from Matt Johnson. Last Sunday, I read through the titles and descriptions of Jesus in the open air at the park. Unfortunately, then, I forgot to bring my voice recorder. This time, I brought my voice recorder, however, I ran out of memory. You can listen to the first 20 minutes or so online. Below is a picture of me reading the list. I’m standing at the corner of Houston and Olive in Dallas.

 When I finished preaching, we put the box and back pack back in the car and then handed out some tracts. We even met an ex-Oklahoma football player who is born again. When I shared that with someone he asked “did you say boomer and he say sooner?” I told him no, I handed him a tract and said, “did you get one of these?” He asked, “what is it?” I told him it was a Gospel tract. He said, “oh, that’s great.” So I asked, “Are you a believer?” He said yes and then began to explain how he came to repentance and faith about two years ago. I gave him my contact info and he said he would call me. I pray that we can do some evangelism together.

Brendan was a real trooper and handed out a bunch of tracts!

Jesus commands his followers to go and share the Gospel. Yet many don’t. Why? For the last two and a half years Bezeugen Ministries has been presenting the Basic Evangelism Training Seminar. In that seminar we ask that very question. The number one answer we get is fear! Please watch this video. See if you relate to any of these reasons why you don’t share the Gospel:

Would you like to overcome these fears?

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.  (Acts 4:13)

Notice that the key is not a seminary degree or even a lot of study. The key is knowing Jesus. Peter and John were both ordinary men. But they had spent time with Jesus and testified about Him.

Need more? We can help. Enroll in a Basic Evangelism Training Seminar. We will help you overcome your fears. If you can’t make it to a seminar, then contact us. We may be able to meet you one to one around the Dallas Metroplex to provide training and mentoring. For more information, contact Carl.

Two weeks ago we went to Brookhaven College at lunch and did some evangelizing. This past Monday we went back again. There were five of us sharing the Gospel. We gave out 50 bottles of water with Gospel Tract labels. One thing is for sure, we did not bring near enough water. The bottles were gone in about 20 minutes. We also handed out about 300 Gospel tracts as well as a few New Testaments and some Gospels of John.

We had a number of good one on one conversations and conversations with the students in small groups. The conversations reminded me of Acts 17:32

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.”

Here are some of my comments favorite moments:

• One guy said he did not want to think about death until he is about to die. So I handed him my business card and asked him to call me on the day he is going to die. He took it and said, “I’ll call to make an appointment.”
• A woman said that when she dies she gets to come back and torment people like me that are telling people about their religion. I told her that I hoped it worked out for her, but that according to the Bible there is no coming back: only heaven or hell
• Todd was speaking to two students. One is a Christian the other is not. He encouraged the non-Christian to continue some dialog with his Christian friend.
• I saw Charlie engage in a one on one conversation. This may have been his first time!
• Pastor Tony was a real tract distribution machine!

The following is from Bill Swearingen:

Not too long ago a friend of mine shared with me the five top excuses that most people use instead of sharing their Hope in the Salvation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Brother and therefore in us.  I took his five excuses and looked up some bible verses that “trumped” the excuse.

With that in mind, here are the five excuses along with Bill’s rebuttal from the scripture.

1. Evangelism – this is NOT your job.  This is Why we hire a Paid Helper – the pastor.  Let him handle this – He’s a Pro & we pay him to do jobs like this.

2. There is plenty of time.  Take it easy.  Lay back, kick off your shoes, slow down,

A couple weeks ago I posted a BLOG entry called to the end of the earth that described some ways the Bezeugen Ministries is reaching the end of the earth. The English, Swahili and French versions of that tract should be coming from the printer soon. Today, I’d like to turn the attention to other efforts world wide to reach the ends of the earth. Here are three ministries that can use your prayers and financial support.

Evangelist Moses in Uganda
Since January 2009 I have been in contact with Moses in Uganda. He takes monthly mission trips around the country preaching the Gospel. Many people are coming to Christ. Through meeting Moses, I’ve been blessed to also get to know Pastor Steve Dollar of Grace Bible Church Troutville, VA. You can read more about Moses on the Grace Bible Church website. Today, I got an urgent prayer request from Pastor Steve. He writes:

I just found out this morning that Moses is in the hospital.  I thought he was on the trip to produce our film but apparently he fell ill during the trip.  He is in the hospital with typhoid and malaria.  He has to pay for each day plus the drugs he uses.  The cost will be several hundred dollars.   This is an urgent plea for funds to you and to all those you know.  If you can support our effort in this, please make checks to Grace Bible Church with a memo ‘For Moses Hospital’. 

Thank you in advance for anything you can contribute.

The address is:

Grace Bible Church of Troutville, VA

2355 Stoney Battery Road

Troutville, VA 24175

Please be in prayer for Moses to get well soon so that he can get back out to serve the Lord. If you are lead to provide support for his hospital care, that would be wonderful.

ECC Mission Trip to Kenya
I started working with Empowerment Christian Center Dallas in November 2009. Our ministry provided training and then introduced them to door to door evangelism. Currently the church is going door to door in the Spanish speaking neighborhoods around their church inviting people to attend a new Spanish worship service that will being on May 16. Pastor Tony has shared with me that the church has plans to go on a mission trip to Kenya in June 2010. They are asking for prayers and financial support. Pastor Tony writes:

I thanks God from the bottom of my heart for your unwavering support to the ECC family as we execute the mandate God has given us. The Lord has laid such a burden in my heart for the victims of the recent civil unrest in Kenya. On the 4th of June 2010, The ECC mission team will leave for Kenya to minister to the Mbaruk IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp. As I write, these people are living in old leaking tents, have little if  any food, deteriorating health conditions and the list goes on and on. Our Budget for the trip is $12000.00. This excludes the airfare (the missioners are paying the fare for themselves). Every dollar donated will benefit the residents of this camp. We need your help please. Together we can pull together and meet this goal. So come and let’s worship God

Proverbs 19:17 One who is gracious to the poor lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed.  

For more details on the Kenya trip including how to make a tax deductible donation to support the effort please see the Kenya Mission 2010 article on the church web site.

Christ Assemblies International Ministries in Pakistan
This group is building a church in Pakistan. They have already acquired the land, cement and bricks. However, they still have a financial need to do the construction. Please watch this video with an update on their work.

It is my prayer that this church will be built to glorify God and bring many to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Please pray for God’s work in Pakistan through these faithful brothers in Christ. For more information or to make a donation please visit their website. I have spoke with Jack Robbins at Lovem Ministries who personally knows the leadership of this group in Pakistan and has visited there a number of times.

Lovem Ministries
Lovem Ministries has a vision to have 250 counties in the United States praying for and supporting 250 countries. Please check out their web site for details on how to pray and support their efforts to win the world for Christ.